Freewheelin-on-line Take Eighteen

Freewheelin’ 216

If you go down to the Tate today, you’re in for a big surprise. Just round the river’s bend from where David Blaine is living in a perspex box, and within sight of the London Eye, you will find this big pink inflatable sculpture. It is the work of the artist Paul McCarthy and he has called this particular creation ‘Daddies Bighead’. I must say that it looks very impressive.

As the streets of London are however becoming somewhat overcrowded I have removed ‘Daddies Bighead’ to the woods around Woodstock. So it is a Big Pink near the Big Pink. And as it is now in the woods, I suppose that I have should have started this explanation with the words: ‘If you go down to the woods today you’re in for a big surprise’.

Dylan was probably very surprised to find that a giant inflatable had landed in his back garden. And he was also probably left wondering just how his younger brother had managed to climb up into ‘Daddies Bighead’ to rescue that kitten.

Rupert is not bothered at all for, despite the carvings on the rocks beneath him, he is happy ‘cos he knows that today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic!

2 Freewheelin-on-line take eighteen (freewheelin’ 216)

Page

4 20 Pounds of Headlines by Mark Carter The Continuing Chronicle of Bob Dylan in the Press.

7 Two Riders Approaching by The Two Riders

13 The Whole Wide World is Watching by Martin Stein

16 The Sad Dylan Fans by Mark Carter

17 Renaldo and Clara. Part 3 by Chris Cooper

22 Modern Art by Richard Lewis

24 Greendale by Russell Blatcher

30 ISIS – Part V by Patrick Webster

33 Whut Wuz It U Wanted by Jim Gillan

36 Running On Empty by Chris Hockenhull

37 The Missionary Times by J R Stokes

43 The Sad Dylan Fans by Mark Carter

All of the quotations from copyrighted works in this publication are strictly for the purpose of legitimate review and criticism only. With regard to photographs, every effort has been made to identify the owner. If you are able to enlighten us please do so, and you will be credited the following issue. It must also be understood that the views and opinions expressed in this magazine are those of each individual contributor and do not represent a consensus of the views of the group

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By Mark Carter

This month’s glut of press cuttings will deal primarily with the reaction of Dylan’s August 2002 swing through North America and into deepest Canada. Before we begin, however, there was an interesting little item in the 13/8/02 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Tony Norman, who complained that the American media had concentrated far too much on Dylan’s appearance at the 2002 Newport Folk Festival and not enough on the music; “…What coverage there was of the music felt perfunctory, as if speculation about his scraggly “new” beard and whether it was real, trumped every other consideration….Why dwell on the mystery of Dylan’s decision to dress like an extra from Fiddler On The roof instead of reporting on what must have been an incredible show?” Indeed, except of course, it may have been what Dylan had in mind all along.

Onto the tour, begining with a review of the Molson Centre show in the Montreal Gazette by T’cha Dunleavy, who enjoyed seeing Dylan getting down to the business of music for music’s sake; “…Throwing his lyrics about with gruff irreverence, Dylan was having fun, as were his musicians. That, apparently, is what it’s still all about. Cool.”

From there, it’s a brief hop, skip and a jump to Ottawa’s Corel Centre, where, in his Ottawa Sun review, Denis Armstrong pondered Dylan’s latest triumph; “…Ageless Bob Dylan. His longevity is a logical puzzle worthy of Stephen Hawking. How is it that one of music’s true dinosaurs, and I’m only using that in the kindest historical context, performs like the latest thing?” Bruce Ward of the Ottawa Citizen was equally impressed; “…Once his chain-saw voice warmed up, Dylan was equal to his red-hot band…If you want dusty relics, there’s plenty of museums to visit in Ottawa. But if you saw Dylan last night, you saw an artist in top form performing his works in progress. That’s all any fan can ask.”

Jeff Miers of the Buffalo News penned a brief – but positive – review of the Erie County Fair gig, singling out some old chestnuts and newer material as highlights: “…Dylan and his impeccable band offered Western New Yorkers a show that, while it might have been just one more stop on the never ending tour, was one that they’ll not soon forget.”

4 The Globe And Mail’s Bill Reynolds considered the inclusion of six Love And Theft songs at Toronto’s Molson Amphitheatre as a good indication of Dylan’s renewed confidence and concludes – though Dylan would probably hate this – that he has progressed from mere rock artist or even legend; “…With back-to-back excellent albums of original material and numerous accolades, Dylan is now the fountainhead of American song. He’s the Hank Williams who rolls along in the limousine from town to town, rather than the Hank Williams who died in the back seat from an overdose.”

Newsday.com’s Glenn Gamboa trekked along the Southampton College show and was mightily glad that he did. Not only did he witness the 2002 revamp of The Mighty Quinn, but he also got witness several Bob Dylans on stage into the bargain; “…In his current set, each song showcases a portion of his persona – Rocker Bob, Country Bob, Bluesy Bob, Political Bob. Few artists could compete with any of these incarnations. Only a great such as Dylan could master them all simultaneously.”

Onto Omaha’s Civic Auditorium, where a crowd of 4,000 contained many younger fans who were turned onto Bob because their parents were fans (Jamie, are you reading this?). They weren’t disappointed, as the World-Herald’s Christine Laue describes; “…Dylan with a guitar, stoic yet soulful. Dusty lilac sunset behind gray fuzzy clouds. Four bandmates who perfectly ebb and flow with just a look or nod from Bob. Two hours of favourite songs. An encore that includes, fittingly, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door… It was heaven all over again.”

Heath McCoy of the Calgary Herald enjoyed the Saddledome show, though he felt it was more suited to a smoky saloon than an arena. Even so, the Love And Theft material and a reworked I Want You (“…during this song Dylan’s voice croaked away weakly, which some might interpret as brilliant – it effectively conveys the song’s sense of hurt, longing and vulnerability – while others might just call it bad singing”) were among the highlights of another well received gig. Similarly, Lisa Wilton of the Calgary Sun was also impressed, perhaps even more so: “…For those, like myself, who had never seen Dylan before, the show was a wonderful opportunity to see one of music’s most enduring figures. For others, it may go down as his best Calgary performance.”

The Edmonton Sun’s questionably named Fish Griwowsky found the Skyreach Centre show to be marred only by the fact that Dylan didn’t talk to the audience. He didn’t recognise any of the Love And Theft songs and felt that Mr. Tambourine Man was a pale shadow of it’s former self. These are not complaints as such; he recognises that, if nothing else, Dylan has earned the right to do whatever he wants, and there was one sublime and personal moment for him during Not Dark Yet; “…It reminded me of waiting at home in Asahi, Japan for my girlfriend to come home, and especially how someone else does that now.” Despite the “No photographs, purleeze!” requests, the Sun managed to get a very respectable onstage shot and he looks o-kay, though as skinny as a match with all the wood shaved off.

Sandra Sperounes of the Edmonton Journal also enjoyed the Skyreach Centre concert, especially the reworking of the oldies (“…Mr. Tambourine Man became a stripped-down acoustic number with a prominent bass and a William Shatner-style rap…Rainy Day Women was transformed into a smoky, bluesy romp by his jaw-

5 droppingly amazing player”), even it, as usual, the lyrics are buried in the mix and in Dylan’s nose; “…A lot of shoulders tilted constantly as the confused asked their friends; “What did he say? “In fact, to the untrained ear, one of the verses in It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) probably sounded like “Fusha, fusha fush HUH”.” Oh, come on, Sandra, that’s a little unfair. Only a little, mind.

Scott Iwasaki of the Deseret News turned in a brief but enthusiastic review of the Deer Amphitheatre show and manages to take ten years off Dylan’s age into the bargain; “…He had trouble reaching some of the higher notes, but it didn’t stop him trying. And though at times he sounded out of breath (could have been the altitude), he still managed some emotional deliveries.”

Finally, another positive review of the Jazz Aspen’s Labor Day gig by Stewart Oksenhorn for the Aspen Times; “…In his first Aspen appearance, Dylan offered up, as he does most every night, an energised look back at his four-decade career. Dylan’s enthusiasm and his affection for his band made for a memorable performance.”

Briefly onto other August / September 2002 matters. Julie Felix gave an interview to the Scotsman to promote her tour and new album Starry Eyed And Laughing. Of the latter, she says ;”It’s something I’ve always wanted to do – I have always absolutely loved his songs. They just seem to be the right kind of material for me, I feel in my element. He knows about the album, but he hasn’t heard it yet.”

Mick McCuistion – of Rolling Tomes fame – was interviewed by Michael Roberts for Westworld and reveals the genesis of his little empire as well as another new book he’s helped to get off the ground, namely Bert Cartwright’s The Dylan Song Companion: A Commentary With Annotations, Volume One. The book, which promises to discuss every song on every album, was only partly completed at the time of Cartwright’s death, but McCuistion gathered up all of Cartwright’s computer files and presented them to Dylan scholar Johnathan Lauer to complete; “The files were completely messed up. It’s unbelievable how much work went into this book. It was probably just as hard for Johnathan to complete as it was for Bert to write it in the first place.”

And that’s it, really. Several German newspapers featured the same photos and comments from the Newport show. My favourite is from Bild, which says that the wig looks like it was made from “unwashed, wire haired dachshund skin…The photo is not intended for use by the anti-smoking campaign.” Oh and his fingernails were dirty also. Blimey, it ain’t easy being a sex symbol.

Guess I’ll see ya next month unless Mars invades us.

THANKS TO GRAHAM ASHOTON, AND JENS WINTER, WITHOUT WHOM THIS WOULD HAVE JUST BEEN THREE SHEETS OF BLANK PAPER.

6

A Fistful of Tapes by The Two Riders

It has been a marathon session of listening over the past month. It is always a pleasure to listen to any Dylan material but you need a lot of time to put onto it. Twenty-seven full shows takes bit of getting through, pleasureable or not. And there is still a batch to go! This leads me to return to the point which Chris C is always making – what about other music? Where is the time for that? As we write I have over twelve recent CD purchases to play and it’s going to take a while. And before they are done, there will be another set of new purchases. It never ends. And where does the time come from to listen to new stuff more than once, or go back to old favourites? Worse things happen at sea but it’s frustrating.

Nevertheless, here we go starting with the last missing show of 2002.

Ann Arbor 7th November 2002

May have been the last one to come through but it is a pretty standard run-through of a late 2002 show. It is very good to hear Hattie Carroll, done well this time out which Dylan follows with a comment about how Hank Williams would wipe the floor with the modern breed. It’s Alright, Ma still sounds great but the cover of Morrison’s Carrying A Torch is a shade overwrought.

And so we move back into 2003 and plug the last two gaps of the Antipodean tour.

Canberra 6th February 2003

This one has a lovely crisp sound making it a pleasure to review. It turns out to be a show of contrasts in the quality of Dylan’s performances. The show starts with Tweedle Dee and Dylan manages to lose the song in the middle so it’s an uncertain start. Things improve somewhat and by song five which is Things Have Changed, he is on fire. Mind you, it is probably accurate to say that he almost always does this song extremely well. The best performance is reserved for Saving Grace. This is not necessarily the best vocal but the performance is so full of feeling it takes you with it. Similarly, Summer Days really jumps. However, Masters of War is dull and plodding.

Melbourne 8th March

Oh dear! This recording provides us with the fan from hell who spends the show sreaming “Yeah, Bobby” right into the taper’s microphone. I’ve never understood this type of concert-goer. I figure you go to listen to the music. Consequently, the

7 concert takes a bit of listening-to. Added to that the sound is very dull. Given all of that, check out the stand-out track Honest With Me which really drives along.

So now we can catch up with the two North American tours. The common denominator of these shows is how well the band plays throughout all shows and the variability of Dylan’s vocals.

Dallas 18th April

Once more Saving Grace is very dignified. It’s a great song anyway and you can feel that it is special to the man himself. Following a hesitant Never Gonna Be The Same Again, the stops are pulled out for Dignity which swings like mad and has a thrilling instrumental bridge. The surprise is a really Dylanified version of Freddy Hart’s Easy Loving.

Houston 22nd April

This one features great sound and starts off well with a rolling and tumbling Tweedle Dee. Also worthwhile is Tombstone Blues which is full of energy. However, things deteriorate immediately with Just Like A Woman. Now why is it that Dylan can’t perform this well any more? This version, like most, is full of inertia, listless and boring. There is a nice harp break at the end but oh dear! Once more the band are superb on Dignity and this is followed by an extremely delicate Moonlight and a raucous Honest With Me.

New Orleans 25th April

The first of two consecutive shows in the Big Easy. This one starts with To Be Alone With You and it is well done too – a lovely rocking start. Look out for a rock hard tilt at Highway 61 and an excellent Things Have Changed. Unfortunately things go downhill with Baby Blue – even though Dylan pulls out a great harp intro, the song is lost because Dylan more or less speaks it rather than sings it. He also stumbles into the vocal for Mr. Tambourine Man.

New Orleans 26th April

Dylan is augmented by saxophone on much of the show. Positively 4th Street positively oozes class and the roof is truly lifted on a storming Cold Irons Bound. Floater works really well in this piano-led arrangement. There is also a steaming, sax-dripping Can’t Wait.

Tunica 27th April

The very next night provides a tastily-recorded show featuring very good sound. The version of Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You which features here is taken at the optimum tempo, completely unhurried and even the vocal isn’t too bad (it often is on this one). Sticking with Nashville Skyline, Lay, Lady, Lay sounds good, helped

8 by expert instrumentation from the band and, even though I thought I’d never say it, Drifter’s Escape is OK tonight and has a lovely harp solo. Saving Grace is as regal as ever.

Nashville 29th April

From whence Blonde On Blonde came. Not quite those heights tonight but Tombstone Blues ratchets up the power levels and Dylan shows off his singing voice quite well this time around. There can rarely have been a more rollicking version of To Be Alone With You and Like A Rolling Stone is top-notch, featuring a very effective piano from our man. Also a lovely guitar break – not from our man! But the highlights have to be Saving Grace and the morose Standing In The Doorway. The crowd really did love this latter one, cheering and yelping at it’s conclusion.

Louisville 30th April

The opener, Tweedle Dee, is very much bedded-in by now and this one swings like fury and has a wonderful backing. This band is so hot now. It is always nice to hear Blind Willie McTell and tonight’s rendition is spot-on. But not as good as the piece- de-resistance which is High Water. This is a killer version and some seriously cutting guitar work. Not only that but we also get a double two-song encore. Mind you the second encore starts with Rainy Day Women so I’m not sure that it’s a bonus.

Atlanta 2nd May

Just an hour long is this show and the sound is dullish. Whilst it is nice to hear Tom Thumb’s Blues and She Belongs To Me it would be nice to hear them, if you catch my drift.

West Palm Beach 4th May

Back to great sound for this show. There are some delicate inclusions tonight such as Senor, Lay,Lady,Lay and Bye and Bye. Cold Irons Bound scales the heights once more and, shock/horror, Just Like A Woman is not too bad at all. Love Sick is back and seems to feature a slightly changed arrangement, perhaps a bit less sparse than normal.

Orlando 5th May

This show seems not to have made much impression on these ears. Just Like A Woman reverts to type (ie dull) and Baby Blue is way too long for comfort. At least he varies it by doing The Wicked Messenger instead of Drifter’s Escape albeit in its identikit arrangement.

9 Charleston 6th May

A very good show. Very refreshing to hear Everything Is Broken as the opener. And it works there. This is closely followed by a musically excellent I Don’t Believe You though the vocal is dodgy. Love Sick hits the spot once more, Saving Grace is superb, Honest With Me is hot and mean and Moonlight is sweet and stylised. Plenty to whet the appetite then.

Portsmouth 8th May

Much that we have said about the previous show applies to this one. A different set list obviously but the high spots are there. Try Maggie’s Farm as the opener rocking like mad. Then take a pinch of the rather wonderful I’ll Remember You. Season with the ever worthy Saving Grace and Honest With Me, throw in a decent Floater and you have a show.

Atlantic City 9th May

After a run of good recordings this show is marred by a noisy audience talking through the songs. I mean – why bother going in the first place? It’s a pity because it’s not a bad set list. The worst and best moments come one after the other. A very raggy Standing In The Doorway is immediately followed by a sublime Dignity. Oh yes, Moonlight is excellent too.

Solomans 11th May

Not much to say about this show. It is competent enough without being remarkable in any way.

Cary 13th May

Another noisy crowd, another unremarkable show – is Dylan running out of steam on this tour now?

Asheville 14th May

A dull sounding recording but never mind, he was not running out of steam! True enough, Baby Blue and Just Like A Woman ramble on somewhat but then there is a magnificent trio of songs which ignite this concert and it glows like magnesium flares. The songs, Every Grain Of Sand, Dignity and Blind Willie McTell are great songs anyway but here they have a new life and the first and third are brought to a new place by Dylan’s prominent piano work. It really does make the songs.

Jackson 17th May

Another short show, with Dylan taking fewer risks. The standout track is undoubtedly Make You Feel My Love.

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Little Rock 18th May

We finally reach the last show of the tour with this harsh sounding, shrill recording. It is a pretty decnt show but there are no extras or concessions to the tour end so it’s a fairly standard set list. Nothing too special upon which to alight.

Winter Park 12th July

Dylan has had a couple of months off the road and this is the start of the new tour. First thing to notice is that he has taken to playing piano on every song. This is good news since it allows the band the freedom to stretch out even further. The set list has changed a little as well. The show starts with a vocally rough Memphis Blues Again before moving into a lovely piano arrangement for My Back Pages. It has a sort of jingle jangle feel which works well even though the vocal is forced. Tweedle Dee stands out well. Later on, Dylan does a newly arranged piano-based It Ain’t Me, Babe which is simply lovely. It is very relaxed and delicate.

Casper 13th July

Memphis Blues Again is retained as the opener and sounds better tonight. It is followed by a very good I’ll Remember You. Tonight It’s Alright Ma and Dignity are stone killers and it is most refreshing to hear the much-maligned Under The Red Sky.

Jackson 15th July

This show takes off with Things Have Changed Following that there is a very well played Standing In The Doorway (iffy vocal), a superb High Water (fantastic guitar work), a very welcome I Believe In You (even if he can’t hit the notes of yesteryear), the eerie, dramatic Cold Irons Bound and that newly arranged It Ain’t Me, Babe.

West Valley City 17th July

A great sounding show which maintains the high-level start to this tour. The crowd really do get behind him at the end of a wonderful I’ll Remember You. Baby Blue, My Back Pages and Moonlight all make the right noises.

Kelseyville 25th July

A week has passed since the last reviewed show and things have settled down a little. The sound on this recording is dull and far too bassy so it’s difficult to review. However, it was nice to hear decent versions of Make You Feel My Love and Most Likely..

11 Sunrise 29th July Dylan/Dead set

Pretty unremarkable three-song set which remains fairly disposable.

Atlanta 31st July Dylan/Dead set

This three-song set has the advantage of starting off with an infectious Big River which makes up for a somewhat predictable ending.

Joliet 2nd August Dylan/Dead set

Now this is much better. It starts out with the excellent Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad, gets lost a bit with a rather rambling Senor and picks up with the pretty hackneyed Around and Around which features a very prominent Dylan piano. It’s pretty good for all it’s been done by everybody and his uncle a million times.

Restless Farewell for now.

Mike and John

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The Whole Wide World is watching

The best of the web by Martin Stein (With thanks to Expecting Rain)

And still the M&A reviews appear! Sad news this month concerning the deaths of Warren Zevon and Johnny Cash. Meantime, life goes on all around us.

1. He Was a Friend of Mine – Dylan’s touching tribute to Johnny Cash can be found at www.rollingstone.com/features/coverstory/featuregen.asp?pid=1067

2. I shan’t Be Released –The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964 - The Philharmonic Hall Concert, recorded on Halloween night 1964 in New York City and originally planned for release this autumn, has now been put back until early 2004.

3. North Country Blues – Promoters are trying to get Dylan to play The Band Room, a 100-seat venue in Farndale near Kirkbymoorside in North Yorkshire. Tickets would retail at around £700!

4. Throw My Ticket Out The Window – A fanatic has set up a site dedicated to Dylan concert ticket stubs – not the real things mind, just pictures! Look for your .jpg at www.freewebs.com/graphite/dylanstubs.htm

5. The full European and UK tour dates are as follows: October 9th – Helsinki Hartwall Arena 11th - Stockholm Globe 12th - Karlstad LofbergsLila 13th - Oslo Spektrum 15th - Gothenburg Scandinavium 16th - Copenhagen Forum 17th - Hamburg Docks 18th - Hamburg Docks 10th - Berlin Arena 22nd - Leipzig Arena 23rd - Prague T.Mobile Arena

13 24th - Budapest Arena 26th - Graz Eissporthalle 27th - Vienna Stadthalle 29th - Munich Olympiahalle 30th - Bolzano Palaonda

November 1st - Rome Pala Eur 2nd - Milan Fila Forum 3rd - Zurich Hallenstadion 5th - Freiburg Stadthalle 6th - Frankfurt Jahrhunderthalle 8th - Dusseldorf Philipshalle 10th - Amsterdam Heineken Hall 11th - Amsterdam Heineken Hall 12th - Brussels Forrest National 13th - Paris Zenith 15th - Wembley Arena 20th - Sheffield Hallam FM Arena 21st - Birmingham NEC 24th - Carling Apollo Hammersmith 25th - Brixton Academy

6. Walking Down The Line – The Bottom Line Club was recently bailed out when a satellite radio network offered to pay its back rent. The Greenwich Village club was facing closure after the non-payment of $185,000 in back rent, having missed about 17 months' worth since 2000.

7. Reviews of two recent Dylan books - Dylan's Visions of Sin by Christopher Ricks and Chimes of Freedom: the politics of Bob Dylan's art by Mike Marqusee can be found in The Independent at http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/story.jsp?story=447329

8. An interesting career profile can be found on the free on-line encyclopaedia at www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan

9. There’s This Movie I Seen – Don’t Look Back has been voted the third best rock film ever. The review ask if the film is: A) a cinéma vérité classic revolving around Bob Dylan's brief English tour in May 1965. B) a glimpse at one of rock's true geniuses just as he was entering his most earth-shaking period. C) a portrait of the artist as an endlessly arrogant bully, surrounded by sycophants he indulges, folk-singing girlfriends he discards (Joan Baez, you are the weakest link; goodbye), journalists he abuses for doing their jobs and fans he verbally destroys just to prove he can. D) all of the above.

14 After nearly 40 years of debate, the answer is still "D." D.A. Pennebaker, one of cinema's true masters of vérité, shows 24-year-old Dylan acting both witty (his answers to condescending journalists are still pretty funny) and vile (his unsewing of Donovan is historic, but his berating of then-student Terry Ellis, who eventually founded Chrysalis Records, is just mean). Highlights include annoying hangers-on, manager Albert Grossman in full deal-making action and what's essentially a music video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues," complete with Allen Ginsburg wandering in the background.

10. In contrast Michael Corcoran has listed M & A as number 8 in the Ten Worst Rock Films Ever. His full list is:

1. 'A Star Is Born' (1976 Kris & Barbra version) 2. 'The Song Remains the Same' 3. 'Jesus Christ Superstar' 4. 'Kurt & Courtney' 5. 'Roadie' 6. 'Almost Famous' 7. 'Give My Regards To Broad Street' 8. 'Masked and Anonymous' 9. 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' 10. 'One Trick Pony'

11. B and B – Bob was a surprise guest during Bruce Springsteen's first encore of his final world tour concert, drawing a huge roar from the crowd. Springsteen introduced him by saying "Taking time to search out for the truth is the American way. I learned that from Bob Dylan." He performed "Highway 61 Revisited" with the E Street Band before disappearing offstage.

12. My Voice Ain’t Got No Form – a fascinating article on how classical singers can learn from Dylan’s voice and phrasing can be found at http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/story.jsp?story=448109

13. Inside the Museum - The City of Hibbing public library has posted up the details of their Dylan collection and display. Donated items are welcomed.

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16 Renaldo and Clara

Or: When I Paint My Masterpiece Part 3 The Influences

By Chris Cooper

Let’s move on to more interesting and less well charted I am afraid, territory.

So what prompted Uncle Bob to make his masterpiece, and what influences were exerted on it? Now I am not claiming exclusivity here, these are simply my own observations. It is certainly not definitive, and probably off beam at times. But we have to start somewhere. There are many erudite writers here in FW House these days, so my lowly opinion may not count for so much. Personally I have never been comfortable with the notion that Dylan has an encyclopedic memory and pulls these connections up from decades ago to produce fine art. Extraordinary he may be, God like he is not. Like all of us I would imagine Dylan reacts and responds with his current environment. Recent incidents and happenings meld into ideas, and ideas become actions. I think I can demonstrate that here effectively.

So let’s start with what prompted the film. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that without the RTR tour of 75 there would not have been a movie. Remember all the footage was made during the tour, and a third of the movie is actually concert footage. (Some would uncharitably wish that was a higher percentage) Dylan had only the previous year returned to the stage, on a long, large venue affair that really was not suited to communication with the crowd. Rolling Thunder appears to have been a reaction to return to a more intimate setting. Throughout the summer of 75 Dylan had been recording his album “Desire” and was clearly pleased with the material. Towards the end of this project he was often turning up at clubs like The Bottom Line and the Other End in NYC and giving impromptu premieres of songs that had just been written. Clearly the action of a satisfied artiste. Of course many of the songs were co-written by Jacques Levy. The song that had started these recording sessions had been inspired by another man, Ruben “Hurricane” Carter. I’ll not bore you all with Hurricane’s story as it is well known, Dylan had read Hurricane’s book “The Sixteenth Round” and felt he needed to champion Hurricane’s cause. Initially planned only as a single. Levy’s arrival had evolved the work into an album project. If Dylan was to get Hurricane’s message over then the song needed airplay and sales. In a word, promoting, the stage was being set, the easiest way was to tour with the song. (Hurricane was played at every show on the 75 tour)

Jacques Levy was already an experienced director when he met Dylan, having worked on the Broadway production of Doonesbury, The Musical, and Oh!Calcutta! For which he had commissioned John Lennon and Sam Shepard amongst others. With Shepard he had helped write off-Broadway productions of Geography of a Horse Dreamer, and Red Cross as well as writing the lyrics for The Musical, Fame. (2) Nowadays he is Head Of Theatre Program at Colgate University. Levy had worked with many other musicians before Bob, and it was one of these who introduced them to each other, Roger McGuinn. McGuinn had mentioned Levy to Dylan, so after a chance meeting with Levy in the Village they began collaborating. McGuinn had advised Dylan that Levy “was a psychologist, he keeps my concentration on one subject until I get it right” (3) obviously these would be attractive enough reasons for Dylan, with his marriage now in its death throes. So yet another connection is made.

17

Bob’s group in ’74 had been the Band, but they were already busy with plans for their own “Last Waltz”, another mega – gig that was to become a superb film. If he wanted to tour he would have to use a different group, some of the musicians would be arrived at logically from the Desire sessions, such as Scarlet Rivera and Howie Wyeth. Whilst showcasing the new songs Dylan began turning up regularly at the Other End in July to witness a residency by Jack Elliott. Dylan would join in occasionally at these gigs, and on July 4th joined Bob Neuwrith for two numbers (4) the following night it was Patti Smith, by the end of Neuwrith’s residency in July most of what would become the RTR band were joining Neuwrith’s group (The Family Jewels) on stage.

With the group mostly in place rehearsals would start in Sept-Oct. Dylan in the meantime putting in a performance on the John Hammond show in September. The program showcased a more stripped down version of Hurricane than the tour would see. Many of the rehearsals were recorded and many of these were later used as background music for many of the scenes in Renaldo And Clara. Which reminds me; let’s get back to more direct influences? It is not my intention to do a show by show account of the tour. Up to now these developments were putting the tour in place. But, you ask, when did the tour become a film? Evidence of filming right at the start and the inclusion of “scriptwriters” such as Shepard and Ginsberg show us that this was certainly developed before the tour started, so what coincidences led to that?

Certainly I believe Levy may have well played some part in the development of the tour into a more theatrical event. But I think the main thrust for this can be leveled in another direction, and from a much earlier source. And for that we have to travel to France.

Allen Ginsberg (more about his influence, later), in an interview for WBAI Radio in 1983 drew our attention to a French film “Les Enfants Du Paradis” (Children Of Paradise) stating that it had impressed and influenced Dylan when he started work on Renaldo and Clara (5)

I don’t suppose we will know for certain how Dylan got to see this film, but it may be significant that he had stayed with David Oppenheimer (painter of the picture on the back of Blood On The Tracks) in May 1975. Dylan was there for 6 weeks soaking up the local culture. With his interest in film of course he may well have seen it much earlier, but what better way to experience French culture than watch the countries most famous film whilst you were there?

Children Of Paradise was made in 1943-5 and screened originally as two films, in March 1945, part 1 “The Boulevard Of Crime” and part 2 “The Man In White”. It is an extraordinary achievement. In 1978 it was voted the best French film ever made. Bearing in mind that the film was made in war time it is an even greater achievement. The film has several oblique references to the war but for the censors benefit they are subtle, here of course they are not an issue. The film is set in 1820 and paints a picture of a world obsessed with crime and theatre. The original screenplay by Jacques Prevert drew its influences from such colourful personalities as Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the innovative mime (6).

Francois Lacenaire, a murderer who went to the scaffold and Frederick Lemaitre a celebrated actor for who Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo wrote plays (7).

The original plan for the film had come from a sensational trial when Deburau had been tried for murder but was found innocent. Thousands had turned up in order to just hear the famous mime speak. This idea was soon altered as the story centers around a mysterious and alluring woman called Garance (played by Arletty, who would later be tried for having an affair with a German officer) (8).

18

Garance arouses passion and envy in four men, but refuses to be compromised in a world full of deception and decadence. She seems to effortlessly glide away from her suitors just when they appear to have ensnared her.

The film covers many years during which she moves from poverty to affluence, but despite her uninhibited manner she never loses her principles or her open minded vision of love “love is so simple” (heard that before somewhere). Set mostly on stage the difference between stage and audience is often blurred. Indeed the title of the film refers to the uppermost part of the theater called “paradise”, the Children of Paradise being the naïve and trusting audiences in the cheap seats. The characters are amazingly detailed, and totally believable, whilst a little fantastic. If there is a male hero it is “Baptiste” a soon to be famous mime, played by the already famous mime “Deburau. Baptiste is always dressed in white, with white makeup on his face whenever he is acting. He falls in love with Garance but loses her to the flamboyant actor “Frederick.” Towards the end of part 2 Garance realizes she loves Baptiste who by then is married with a son. They spend the night together and are discovered by Baptiste’s wife. In fact all four main male characters have a relationship with Garance and all end badly, and in the case of the Count tragically as he is murdered by Lacenaire.

Lacenaire The Count

Well so far I may have described an interesting film but where are those Dylan influences? Let’s consider first the playwrights Carne and Prevert, both are homosexuals. I would not pass doubt on Shepard but we are aware of Ginsberg’s interests. Both were Jewish, a fact that had to be hidden from the Germans. Both placed deceptive scenarios in the film that spoke out about Nazi occupation, but in a quiet way, the film is a performance film (on stage) but spills into the lives of the people off stage also. There is often overspill from stage to private performance. Most of the characters in Carne’s film are based on real life people from that period. This characterization is quite accurate with the actors often stating so in the film. Lacenaire was a real man who went to the guillotine at 37 for murder. Near the start of the film he tells Garance “I will hold my head up until it falls into the basket.” (As indeed it does by the end of the film) This methodology is used in Renaldo And Clara, here the characters play dramatizations of real people (namely each other) e.g. Ronnie Hawkins as Dylan, Ronee Blakely as Mrs. Dylan.

19

The colour red, (though the film is black and white) in the form of a rose features throughout the film, usually in the presence of Garance. Sometimes as a motif on her dress. Notably the rose is dropped or left behind whenever violence is enacted on Baptiste or Garance. The name of the Inn they frequent translates to “The Red Breast”. And Garance’s name comes from a French red flower, resembling a rose.

Garance is often placed high, in one scene she is quite literally, on a pedestal. She is the only character that remains in control whatever happens. This majestic aloofness, cold detachment, is Zen like in appearance, this has often attracted Dylan himself (Sara was very interested in Zen philosophy when she met Dylan). Most of the male characters are vagabonds, rascals, and opportunists. They have few scruples and fewer morals.

Several scenes are echoed in Renaldo and Clara. There is a scene near the start when Frederick is denied access to the Theater, which is very reminiscent of the scene with Ronson and Hawkins . Later Baptiste’s future wife Natalie is holding up a wedding dress and Baptiste enters with the rose given him by Garance which provokes an argument, very much like the scene with Dylan, Sara and Baez.

The scene in Renaldo and Clara where students are asked what they dreamed about last night, is also echoed with the thief, Jericho, also an informer, with a book, Interpretation Of Dreams under his arm, entering asking “Do you dream of cats, do you dream of dogs.”

Of course throughout the film the stage curtain rises and falls. Dylan would use a curtain on the Rolling Thunder Tour (both 75 and 76) but has failed to use it since. The curtain in Children Of Paradise looks very similar in design to the one we see in Renaldo And Clara.

Near the end of part one Garance and Frederick have an argument about love whilst Garance sits in front of a mirror taking off make up. This reminds us strongly of the Ronee Blakely – Steve Soles scene. (The one with that classic quote from Soles “I don’t know what’s so fucking important about fucking!”) Part two of the film is subtitled “The Man In White” and as the film nears its conclusion Nathalie confronts Garance and Baptiste in the room in which they have just spent the night. She protests to Baptiste that he must understand that she loves him the most. Garance is wearing a white dress, with roses on it. Nathalie stands in the doorway looking at the lovers and saying “don’t leave me here like this”.

The number of comparisons make this far more than coincidence, Dylan has clearly considered this film a great deal when making Renaldo and Clara. But whilst I am convinced that “Children Of Paradise is indeed a major influence on Dylan’s plans for Renaldo and Clara. There were certainly others too, but that as they say, is another story.

Till Next Time….

(2) Jacques Levy Interview Isis 90 (3) Artists database.com (4) Rolling Stone, August 1975 (5) Ginsberg Interview WBAI March 1983 (6) French Interview 1990 with Marcel Carne by Brian Stonehill (7) French Interview 1990 with Marcel Carne by Brian Stonehill (8) French Interview 1990 with Marcel Carne by Brian Stonehill

20 The Curtain The Wedding Dress

The Children Of Paradise?

21

Modern Art By Richard Lewis

I’ve just bought two new CDs by two of my favourite singer-songwriters, Neil Young and Tom Russell, who each refer to Bob Dylan in one of their new songs. On the autobiographical title track of his new album “Modern Art” Tom Russell sings about seeing the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964 and then sings:

And that’s where I saw Bob Dylan’s show, When he sang “Desolation Row”, And somehow I was never quite the same.

On his website “Blood Shots” Russell talks a bit more about seeing Dylan:

I’ve never met him but I did see him sing “Desolation Row” and I was moved and astounded, artistically speaking. Later I saw him in Santa Monica, when he was still approachable, sitting in a car behind a venue waiting to get paid or something and he asked us, me and my friends, where the nearest liquor store was.

Another time I have the recollection that we chased his station wagon down the Santa Monica Freeway, and he pulled over and danced round our car. I know it sounds crazy and weird now, but I think it happened.

As well as his own songs he also puts a tune to a Charles Bukowski poem and sings songs by Emmylou Harris, Warren Zevon, Dave Alvin, Michael Smith and Nanci Griffith who sings three duets with him. Worth checking out.

Just after Neil Young finished his acoustic European tour in May my friend Bill sent me a 3CD bootleg of the Amsterdam show. As you may have read, at these shows Young started off each show by singing 10 brand new songs about a fictional town called “greendale”. After the first song Young tells us a bit about greendale and the people who live there. Some of these bits of background last for 4 or 5 minutes. I know some Neil Young followers are not too keen on “greendale” but I really enjoyed listening to Neil talk and sing about it on this triple bootleg. On holiday in Ireland earlier this month I kept playing it. On one track that I now know is called “bandit” he sings:

Nobody can touch you now But I can touch you You’re invisible, you’ve got too many secrets Bob Dylan said that, something like that Someday you’ll find everything you’re looking for.

When the official CD came out I went and got it straight away. I had thought that he might have left the line about Dylan out but there it was. In the booklet that comes with the CD instead of printing the lyrics Young puts down some of the background that he had given between songs in concert. If you read the booklet from cover to

22 cover you will get some idea of both what goes on in Greendale and what goes on in Young’s mind. It is a fascinating read. He starts off by warning us: ….there’s a lot going on in Greendale that i don’t know about either. Can you imagine? i mean, i made it up and i don’t know what the hell is going on. so don’t feel bad if you feel a little out of it with this. no one really knows….

Young keeps throwing in little asides like ..this is a test. I don’t know if I’m gonna pass or not. But I already passed that cortez test. I’d like to take it again someday, maybe today. But for a minute I’d like to stay in Greendale………

Carmichael is a policeman who gets shot dead so Young says …he had a story to tell, but he’s not around anymore, so i’ll tell you a little bit about him and that’s it. it’s not worth it too spend too much time on him, since he doesn’t have a future. carmichael had a terrible argument with his wife that morning as he was leaving to go to work. so that was kind of too bad, ‘cause she never saw him again. so it kind of makes you think about always try to be nice to the one you love because you never know what’s gonna happen. so i learned that from this song. i don’t care if you learn it, i learned it.

My favourite bit in the booklet comes in the notes to “bandit” where he tells us what happens while he plays his guitar at the end of the song. Then he writes ….i tell you all this because you can’t tell by listening to the songs, you have to listen to the instrumentals to get this. anyway, so when you see somebody like eric clapton up there playing guitar and closing his eyes it could be anything. It could be anything.

If you haven’t got a copy of Greendale yourself then try and borrow one and take the time to read the booklet.

I also just bought the soundtrack to “Masked and Anonymous” but I will have to write about that next time, as I need to finish my Literacy and Numeracy planning for Year 6 Set 3!

23 Greendale

By Russell Blatcher

There is a recording of the Greendale portion from one of Neil Young’s recent shows in Dublin around on the Peer To Peer network. The official release is touted as being on both DVD and CD.

Young’s first remark to the audience in Dublin reflects upon the instant communication of tour news commented upon here recently in the Dylan context:

I’m ready. By now you know what I’m doing before I do, I suppose.

Yes, indeed, look on the tour site of HyperRust and you will find that every show without fail opened with the entire Greendale album, 10 unreleased tracks, stitched together into a continuous narrative by Young’s deadpan detailing of the story of the mythic American town, and its main family, the Greens.

The second half ‘oldies’ section also followed a fairly strict pattern early on, before diverging wildly later at some venues. At the Manchester show I attended, one of the modem-equipped wiseacres in the audience shouted out the name of the track which had followed at every show until then. Young paused, sneered and said, “You should open one of those psychic shops in town”, and proceeded to play it any way. It is hard to know why he chose to tack the second half of the show on. On the face of it, it looks like a sop to popular affection for the old stuff, especially 30 years after the notorious show, also in Manchester, at the Palace, when the performing of unreleased songs from Tonight’s the Night was greeting with very little equanimity by a different crowd, not forewarned in the slightest that they were going to hear little or nothing from Harvest, or their other favourite Young albums. When one of the 2003 Manchester audience shouted rightly of his absence from that great city “30 years”, Young erroneously corrected their maths, muttering about playing here in 1976. Unfortunately this nation is blessed with more than one Apollo theatre, and the one he played in 1976 was in Glasgow, not Manchester. For me personally, this time, much as it was that time, the new songs were much the better part of the show, mainly because he seemed to put much more into them. Strangely enough, Young himself connects the shows in one of his self-commentating asides, when he reveals he hasn’t written a group of songs so focussed upon one topic, since he wrote “a bunch of songs about a roadie”, i.e. Bruce Berry, on the album Tonight’s The Night.

As the Greendale album remains unreleased, and Young hasn’t introduced the songs by name, the titles are, as yet, guesses. The opener, the only song performed prior to the Greendale tour, is Falling from Above, which may also be called Love and Affection:

24

Grandpa said to cousin Jed Sittin' on the porch, "I won't retire But I might retread."

"Seem like that guy singin' this song Been doing it for a long time. Is there anything he knows That he ain't said?"

Sing a song for Freedom. Sing a song for Love. Sing a song for depressed angels Falling from above.

Grandpa held the paper Pretending he could see. But he couldn't read Without his glasses on.

"How can all those people Afford so many things? When I was young people wore What they had on."

Mamma said, "A little love and affection In everything you do Will make the world a better place With or without you."

A little love and affection In everything you do A better place With or without you.

Slamming down a late night shot, The Hero and the artist compared Goals and visions and afterthoughts For the twenty first century.

But mostly came up with nothing, So the truth was never learned. And the human race just Kept rollin' on.

Rollin' through the fighting, Rollin' through the religious wars, Rollin' down the temple walls And the churches' exposed sores.

25

Rollin' through the fighting. Through religious wars. Mostly came up with nothin'...

"Grandpa here's your glasses, You'll see much better now," Said that young girl Of Edith and Earl's.

But Grandpa just kept starin' He was lost in some distant thought Then he turned and he said To that young girl...

"A little love and affection In everything you do, Will make the world a better place With or without you."

With or without you. A better place... With or without you. With or without you.

Hear that rooster crowin' Down on the Double E. It's a new morning Dawning on the green.

Bouncing off the towers, The sun's heading down to the streets. The business meeting Window shades are drawn.

Another morning edition Is headed for the porch, Because Grandma puts down the paper Before Grandpa raises his fork.

A little love and affection In every thing you do, With or without you... Hear the rooster crowing Down on the Double E...

The perennial Neil Young critic (I have Dave Marsh in mind here) will probably see this as typical of his trite sentiments in many songs down the years, especially if they focus too tightly on the chorus. In fact the second verse is a quote

26 from just such a critic: "Seem like that guy singin' this song Been doing it for a long time. Is there anything he knowsThat he ain't said?"

But look at the central image “depressed angels, falling from above”. If you still retain the Eighties image of Young as the Reagan supporting conservative, you may have missed his comment on the Iraq war. On March 10th, at the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame, just before the tanks started to roll, he said:

"Tonight we're having a good time. But we're going to kill a lot of people next week. Let's not forget about that ... We're making a huge mistake."

What, in this context are “depressed angels”, and why would they be falling from above? The angels are depressed because of what they see going on below, namely yet another political war, dressed up in quasi religious fervour. So depressed indeed that they have thrown themselves from heaven, and are falling down towards us, much like Satan and his cohorts, “Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie” as Milton has it. And indeed the devil too is a major character in Young’s Greendale, lurking, only half hidden in the jail, and playing some part in Jed Green’s killing of the popular local patrolman Officer Carmichael.

The three generations of Greens are archetypical Americans, apparently very different, from young Sun Green, drafting her ephemeral anti-war banner in the corn, for airplane passengers to read, to her hippie generation father, still struggling to sell his psychedelic paintings, to Grandpa, the wise old curmudgeon who sees through all the fantasy fired at people from their TV screens, including the current fantasy of yet another just war. Grandpa’s comments on TV sets him firmly in the Eisenhower era:

It ain't a privilege to be on TV. And it ain't a duty either. The only good thing about TV Is shows like Leave it to Beaver.

Shows with 'Love and Affection,' like Mama used to say. A little Mayberry living Could go a long long way.

Leave it to Beaver ran from 1957 through 1963. The Andy Griffith Show, which started in 1960 was located in Mayberry, which Greendale is probably another version of.

Young is telling the Green’s story because he believes in America, or more precisely, in Americans, not in the Hero or the Artist, who “mostly come up with nothing”. Grandpa’s views tie back to the era when the US public could not be so easily enticed to support hare-brained foreign adventures at the merest of excuses. But Young is clear as well that in the end Americans of all eras will resist the likes of Bush and Cheney, as they transmutate into the kind of despots the U.S.A. was set up to escape from.

27 In the song Leave The Driving, Jed’s slaughter of the police officer is tied to the shortly to follow terrorist attack on New York:

The whole town was stunned. They closed the Coast Highway for 12 hours. No one could believe it, 'Cause Jed was one of ours.

Meanwhile across the ocean, Living in the Internet, Is the cause of an explosion No one has heard yet.

But there's no need to worry. There's no reason to fuss. Just go on about your work now. And leave the drivin' to us.

And we'll be watching you, And everything you do. And you can do your part By watchin' others too.

“Leave The Drivin” is the Bush administration’s advice to the U.S. public, on how to conduct the “war on terror”. In the third stanza quoted here is a clear depiction of the McCarthyite tactics currently used to suppress any criticism of this policy. Grandpa refuses to listen to the propaganda, despises TV and reads the paper without his glasses.

The song concludes with a bitter condemnation of Bush’s war and the motive for it:

The moral of this story Is try not to get too old. The more time you spend on earth, The more you see unfold.

And as an afterthought, This must, too, be told, Some people have taken pure bullshit And turned it into gold.

Which is to say that the motive for the war is purely economic.

Neil Young never ceases to amaze me. His combination of this song cycle with his deceptively laconic narrative has forged a new idiom in popular music. It will be fascinating to see if the album is released with or without the narrative. Conventional wisdom may dictate leaving it out, but I hope that he doesn’t. Currently news is that the release of the album has been brought forward from September to August 5th. This is so counter to experience of Young’s release schedules that I would view it with intense suspicion. But you never know. Amazingly, one of the Hyperrust reviews of

28 the current U.S. Greendale Tour, with Crazy Horse, describe the arrangements as “much like the Zuma sound”.

It would appear that elements of the Young entourage have introduced a drama into the presentation (Larry Craggs as Grandpa, Pegi Young as Edith), using 3 stages: the jail, and the Double E ranch and assorted locations on an hydraulic lift, as well as a large video screen.

As a result of the delay in submitting this piece, the official release of Greendale has now arrived. As promised, this contains a DVD as well as the CD of the song suite itself. The DVD turns out to be of the same Dublin show I have been discussing. I’m not sure that the visuals add a great deal to the argument, but it’s nice to have, though I would have preferred one of the more dramatic, group shows from the States. Perhaps this is still to come.

The Guardian review of the album on Friday 1st August was packed with all the usual anti-Young animus. I really cannot see the point of using a reviewer with a negative outlook on the whole oeuvre from the start for a performer as well established as Young. Dorian Lynskey, the culprit in this case, should be shown some of the contemporary reviews of Young’s masterworks, mostly rubbished when they first appeared. Here is a typical comment:

Alas, Young's quality control is, like his pseudonym, shaky. The pivotal shooting is gauchely described as "a split-second tragic blunder", which suggests he has been taking stylistic tips from the true-life stories in Take a Break magazine. In one bathetic couplet, which rhymes "loaded up both barrels" with "a woman named Carol", the influence appears to be Victoria Wood.

Mmm, gauche and pathetic, how appropriate then that this followed very shortly after the low key, but long overdue CD release of On The Beach, which includes the following admonition in Ambulance Blues:

So all you critics sit alone You’re no better than me for what you’ve shown With your stomach pump and your hook and ladder dreams We could get together for some scenes

As he also says elsewhere in the same verse: “It’s hard to say the meaning of this song”. Mr Lynskey admits towards the end “Perhaps we're not meant to understand it all.” Since Young himself admits his own frequent disassociation from the songs as he writes them, we should perhaps not even try. But, I can’t help it, and surely anyone can understand Sun Green’s corn field message.

29

Isis - Part VI 1701 words on The Solitary Hero and Isis By Patrick Webster

To continue: the two men begin their journey:

We set out that night for the cold in the North. I gave him my blanket, he gave me his word. I said, ‘Where are we goin’?’ He said we’d be back by the fourth. I said, ‘That’s the best news that I’ve ever heard.’

One notes that the two men leave at night and that they head for the cold and the north, these being harsh, masculine images that stand in opposition to Isis’s feminine southern world of lightness and warmth. There is a sense that these are men braving the elements, undergoing ordeals that exact superhuman effort. As in the Western, what is at stake here is a getting away from the triviality of life into something that seems real, something that calls ‘the whole soul of man into being,’ into a sense of action that ‘totally saturates the present moment,’ that totally absorbs the body and the mind, and directs one’s life to ‘ the service of an unquestionable goal’. The goal of the two men in ‘Isis’ would appear to be a search for treasure, but, within the discourse of the adopted Western genre, the goal could be interpreted as having a greater significance. To borrow from Tompkins, the two men are in:

‘... a world without God, without ideas, without institutions, without what is commonly recognised as culture, a world of men and things, where male adults in the prime of life find ultimate meaning in doing their best together on the job.’

Further to this, the sense of bonding between the two men, as they look for an ultimate meaning together, is enhanced by the exchange of possessions, quoted above, in verse four. The narrator gives the stranger his blanket and receives in return the man’s word. The gift of a blanket suggests a certain sense of intimacy, what might be seen as almost a feminising gift indicating comfort and warmth. Whilst the gift of ‘his word’ offers a further element of ambiguity. In a sense the song could be read as a tract concerning the male ownership of language. One man giving another man ‘his word’ could be read not merely in the sense of swearing a promise but also describing the ownership of language itself. Allen Ginsberg may have described Isis as a ‘Lady Language Creator,’ however, the discourse of the song - and our theoretical construct of language - betrays this idea. Whilst it is interesting to note that the narrator can remember other information about Isis, (the way that she smiled - in verse thirteen) he cannot remember her words, her use of language, (he cannot remember the best things she said - in verse six). Isis, as a woman, does not own language, her gender lacks the

30 universal signifier of language and thus her words are relatively unimportant and are easily forgotten, whereas the male gift of ‘the word’ is of significance. In a symbolic and a literal sense both men possess the phallus, Lacan’s universal arbiter of sexuality, the key signifier of meaning, the ultimately privileged signifier. Thus there is a sense here in which men own language, they give each other their word, and use language to control women.

In the fifth verse a materialist motive for the journey is suggested:

I was thinkin’ about turquoise, I was thinkin’ about gold, I was thinkin’ about diamonds and the world’s biggest necklace. As we rode through the canyons, through the devilish cold, I was thinkin’ about Isis, how she thought I was so reckless.

As indicated previously, there is an implication that a quest for treasure, for fabulous wealth, may be the real purporse of the journey, putting the song within a common genre of adventure story. However, material greed is an incidental incentive, far from a prospect of gold and diamonds, it is the idea that Isis will find the narrator ‘so reckless’ that is of primary importance. Once again a contradiction is inferred, the male narrator may have achieved his wish of finding himself within an exclusively masculine environment, but nonetheless his thoughts are still concerned with the female presence he has left behind.

The two men continue their journey and eventually reach the pyramids, which are, somewhat improbably it must be said, buried in ice. It is at this point that the narrator’s companion reveals that it is a body he is really looking for. There is an ambiguity and a tension to the line, when the narrator informs us: ‘Twas then that I knew what he had on his mind.’ However, as to what the man may have actually had on his mind is left unspoken. In a conspicuous gap in the narrative, an elision, an aporia, in what one might describe as an ‘Iserian blank’, the stranger dies and the narrator quickly buries him. At this stage the narrative becomes overtly compressed and the cause of the man’s demise is not disclosed. All we can discern is an anxious concern on behalf of the narrator with the cause of the fatality, and a hope that it is not communicable.

The narrator then returns to Isis, to tell her he loves her, which is not quite the same, one notes, as actually loving her. Isis is in the meadow where the creek used to rise. There is further subtle phrasing here, the phrase ‘where the creek used to rise’ might be seen as suggesting a lost fertility, pointing to a number of possible readings. If one continues to read the song within the Western genre, then the sense of sexual deprivation found in the Western can be perceived, as Tompkins puts it

Like the absence of greenery, it (the cowboy’s denial of sex) is a turning away from fertility, fluidity, propagation and an affirmation of what is hard and dry and takes a long time to come to fruition.

However, the song is also rooted in a narrative of Egyptian myth, and, if only on a much reduced level, the dry creek evokes the dried-up Nile of the original Isis-Osiris story. In the original myth it was a failure of fertility that called for a sacrificial death and rebirth. Seth, the son of Isis and Osiris, killed his father and scattered him in

31 fourteen pieces up and down the Nile. Isis searched until she had found thirteen of the pieces to rebuild her husband, lacking only the fourteenth piece, the phallus.

It is thus interesting to note that when the narrator breaks into the tomb he finds the casket empty: ‘There were no jewels, no nothing…..’. The word nothing could be deconstructed in Shakespearian terms a ‘no thing’ in other words no phallus. In a sense (like the aforementioned search for the pole) the song becomes a search for the phallus. There is no thing, there is an empty tomb, and there is a dried up creek. Dylan’s technique here is to use a complex overlay of different myths, to suggest a sense of sexual aridity present just beneath the surface of the lyric.

Roger Horrocks, writing about masculinity in the Western, noted that the desire men may feel for each other within the genre can be attained only through violence and death, when there is nothing to lose in betraying one’s true feelings. The Western novel and film are ‘phallic discourses’ taken to an end point. They are discourses in which the only thing that one man can give another is death, a dissolution back into the universe, a merging with everything else. As Horrocks puts it:

Men yearn for death. And they yearn for death in each other’s arms, finally babbling of their forbidden love for each other.

Something of this can be felt in the emotional interchanges between the two men in ‘Isis’. There is an unspoken, undeveloped attraction between the two men, that can only be alluded to via the death of one of them. This would seem to raise the notion that a lack of a sexuality in ‘Isis’ goes some way into defining the masculine narrator.

To be continued ...

32 Whut wuz it

u wanted ?

…By Jim Gillan

Howdy! Just back from an excellent couple of weeks in that parallel universe, Ireland. Excellent trip, but hard to get back in to the house on account of the HUGE pile of letters. Many, many, many of which were from the dark army. Do other Freewheelers suffer (or perhaps I mean enjoy) a similar level of interest (or perhaps I mean anger)? Anyway, as ever, here are some from the pile…Let me begin with a nice easy one.

On the web site it says “Jim is a book reviewer for ISIS and other non-Dylan magazines. He is a poet in the making and a writer whose work is blessed with the ability to use words with wit and, occasionally, acerbity.” HA! HA! HA! (etc). If you’re so smart, why then don’t ya show it?

Signed A FAN

HA! indeed! Well, Signed A FAN (odd name, but so it goes) what do you think? Hold on! Why am I asking you? Anyone daft enough to write the above is probably going to struggle with any concept more profound than the Lottery Draw! But here are some ideas that might help you arrive at answers of your own…

• Maybe the holy spoke got me wholly confused with someone else! Or vice versa. • Maybe I only exist in an imaginary dimension, a bit like the square root of minus two. Which however has its uses! Does this mean that I 2 have uses? I make my excuses and leave it to you. • Maybe something is happening – only YOU don’t know what it is. • Maybe it’s like press conferences, interviews, overviews, commentary, analysis, discussion, debate, books, articles, documentaries about Dylan – none of it matters!

EXAMPLE! It makes no difference how often Bob or anyone sings ‘With God On Our Side’ or ‘Masters Of War’ or ‘John Brown’ or any of that canon (there’s irony there – and not just in the barrels), as Bush and co are deaf to music (other than that of ringing cash tills);

humanity is, on the whole, a lost cause (look at who we let hold the reins of power); and pain sure brings out the best in people. But I digress.

As it happens, I am part of a poetry group and it did add its efforts to calls for sense to prevail. We marched, we attended meetings, we lobbied. We wrote impassioned

33 poems to Tony Blair. Some of my colleagues formed teams that wrote reams. They pleaded with Tony to pull back from the apocalyptic abyss. The very ink in the pens boiled. Neither Dante, nor Milton, nor Blake wrote with such power! Knowing a bit about the attention span and intellectual capacity of politicians, I contented myself with two simple offerings. Before the attacks began I wrote ‘DON’T’. When the bombs began to fall I wrote ‘STOP’. Later I cried.

But now, in the light of what the Hutton inquiry is revealing, I think that some nameless apparachik took my two offerings, made them into the single ‘DON’T STOP’, then showed it to Blair, who happily seized on it as compelling evidence of support for his approach!!!!! O the heartless cynicism of it. Don’t follow leaders said Bob. I wonder why? Incidentally, ANYTHING, however vile, is justified by Governments on the grounds of ‘political expediency’ – surely the filthiest phrase in any language. Going to vote next time are you? In the hope of what? More of the same? Politicians only look big because you are on your knees.

Now then, it might seem ridiculous to suggest that Blair relied upon my terse verse, but consider. Whilst I may seem to be a much less informed and authoritative source than the combined might of the Intelligence Services and the Cabinet, unlike them I never claimed that Saddam possessed a threat from WMD that could be readied in less time than it takes to play ‘Blood On The Tracks’. I never thought that arming a vile regime (as the USA and the UK once did for Saddam - and continues to do so for many others) was a good thing!

Remember Broooooccceeeee, when ‘Born In The USA’ got in to the hands of the Regan administration? No wonder Bob keeps a low profile and only communicates in riddles. Even so, I reckon that ‘Day Of The Locusts’ could still get him into trouble with Donald Rumsfeld.

Now then, another letter… But what’s this? URRRGGGH! Well, I despair. Another illusion shattered. I though that whatever else might be said about Freewheelin’ readers, ‘pretty nice on the whole’ might apply to all of ‘em. NOT SO! This next is a request for me to – no I’m not going to lend any dignity to this. All I can say to ‘Big Breather’ (an obvious alias – I know who you are) is that I’m not going to ask Mary for any such thing. Odd ain’t it. The relentless exploitation and degradation of the planet and its people attracts less outrage than what is ultimately a harmless fetish? If only Tony would content himself with a laddered stocking. Here’s hoping that the next off the pile is an improvement. Well sort of…

Dear Jim, What’s your take on Love & Theft and that Japanese book? Very best regards, Michael G.

Yippee! Evidence, if any were needed, that Freewheelin’ is indispensable, as Issue 215 explains what old MG (incidentally, I though he was still doing his ‘WORLD AUTHORITY Explains Dylan’ tour of village halls and back street bookshops) is on about. HA! It seems that there might be an overlap between L&T and something called ‘Confessions of a Yazuka’. Let’s have a look…H’mmm. Could be…..

34 When Bob wrote ‘With God On Our Side’, he supposedly lifted the tune from Dominick Behan’s ‘The Patriot Game’. Old Dominic, drink taken, is said to have come to the Savoy when Bob was over in 1965 with the intention of battering him for his impudence. At one level, all this illustrates is that Bob, like all artists in every medium, deliberately draws on anything that engages him, though is often sloppy about attribution. Perhaps on the grounds that his sources would themselves have drawn on earlier works. Perhaps because sharing royalties is even harder than sharing credit. Personally, I think that the story would have been immeasurably improved if echoes of ‘The Fanny Craddock Cook-Book’ had been found.

Here’s a thought. Had Behan been a hard as nails, sword wielding, honour is everything yakuza, rather than an out of condition imbiber of vast quantities of Stout, would Bob have used a different tune?

OK. Only a couple more for now.

Dear Jim. Are you going to many of the shows – I know you went to six last year…AJ

Hi AJ. Yes and No. As in Yes I did get to six – all VERY enjoyable – and No I’m only going to Sheffield. I’m a bit off Bob at the moment. In part it’s because nothing that I have heard recently grabs my one good ear, but mostly it’s because I’ve been listening to LOADS of other stuff. But who knows? Anyone who wants a ticket can get it one way or another. Is it mad to go or mad to stay away? Will attendance or absence provide the better perspective? History will be the judge, as someone sort of said recently. Which reminds me….

Parallel universes cross time, as well as place, boundaries. So I’m not surprised to find myself gazing at the statue of Tony Blair. Erected outside the new Parliament Building in Piccadilly and unveiled in March 2070, it is apparently the most crapped on statue on the planet, the daily tonnage of birdy-pooh exceeding the weight of all the excrement of the centuries heaped on all other monuments combined. And to think that ‘bird-brain’ was once used as a derogatory term. I think I’ll see if I can get reborn as a gull. And no, I didn’t see anyone else around, not even in my nightmares.

Hoi! I thought the best was still to come!!!!!!!! But your stuff is £***&^%$!!!@~??&

H’mm. No name, so it could be from one who is shy. Or from too many to list. Well, my anonymous friend(s) - or can I call you Andy? - it’s the Spoke (He who we revolve around) who writes that. Personally, I think his optimism clouds his experience. What the hell, it’s all relative. You’ll find out when you reach the top. Though hopefully well before then.

35 RUNNING ON EMPTY

by Chris Hockenhull

A rather brief despatch from the front this month as having just returned from holiday this week and to a job that I’m trying to get my head around within the wonderful world of the Primary Care Trust and the challenges of supporting carers in this day and age of continuous cuts by Local Authorities etc. Still its work and I’ve got to be grateful for that.

Due to all this my time to think about much else has been very limited. And to be honest I’m feeling that my Dylan interest could possibly be at an all time low. This occurred to me two weeks ago when in HMV in Liverpool I held in my hands the soundtrack to Masked and Anonymous and decided that the £20.00 would be far better invested in the new releases by Paul Brady and Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys and a classic release from yesteryear by Nick Jones. These have given me immense pleasure for varying reasons and I stand by my decision.

And I just cannot be bothered getting tickets for the November shows. Instead November’s highlight for me will be a visit here by Show of Hands.

Thirdly the wonderful experience of running The Life and Times of Bob Dylan course at Liverpool University, despite its unquestionable success for over six years looks to have come to an end. Political games by the hierarchy that oversees such things has deemed popular music courses as undeserving to be placed on this autumns prospectus and everything they could do to discourage me has finally paid off. This has been coming for a while now and as my course was the only one that kept running they had to leave me until last until a George Custer scenario found me alone with the flag to be eventually picked off.

I really could write more about this example of pettiness and I’m flattered and fed up by my ex students calling me wondering why none of my courses are on the new prospectus.

All this adds up to a rather dispirited writer here this month and I feel like I can’t be arsed anymore. I do hope normal enthusiasm returns by the next despatch.

On a sad note I am sorry Neil has flown the nest. Right from the start I warmed to him and found him most pleasant company and a man who loved lots of other music as well as his football. I thank you for your company and writings over the years and hope that you are free to pursue the things that give you lots of pleasure in the future. Thank you again.

36

THE MISSIONARY TIMES

By J.R.Stokes

Like Ice, Like Fire (Addressing The Night in ‘Visions of Johanna’)

Part 22 Love & Marriage & the Cruelty of Visions

IF I ignore the voice of the poet and do look back then I have to say that, actually, I am not sure if the way that I have tried to interpret Dylan’s classic song ‘Visions of Johanna’ over the last 21 parts in the mega-series has really worked. I appreciate that it is all a bit late now to have doubts and second thoughts, especially as all of those 21 parts have been published in one form or another, and thus I can’t adopt the tempestuous stance taken by many an artist of tearing it up, ripping it apart and starting all over again.

My problem is that I have endeavoured to interpret the song in a pictorial sense and in pursuit of some kind of artistic perfection, or at least some kind of satisfaction, I have introduced numerous characters and images into my portrayal of the song so that, ultimately, all those individual images will make my complete picture. Unlike you, I can actually see that picture in front of me: I know the colours I have used, I know where I am and I know what moves I have to make to continue and complete. My doubts and second thoughts arise, not from my perspective of the interpretation, but from yours, dear reader, and in particular those dear readers who, when faced with any interpretation of a Dylan song (let alone a pictorial one) scramble to the top of their hill to wave a banner which shouts: ‘YOU CAN THINK FOR YOURSELF’. How can I possibly expect you to see like me, feel like me and be like me? Hey, you’re probably not getting it all!

A fundamental difficulty in the way I have been endeavouring to interpret ‘Visions of Johanna’ is that, with a picture, the viewer can look at every ingredient in one instant. Every brush stroke that has been used, every colour, every aspect of light and shade, every nuance of movement is frozen to be witnessed at just one glance. In a literary interpretation on the other hand, and especially one that has, to date, involved 21 parts, those brush strokes, those colours, those aspects of light and shade, those nuances of movement are buried deep within the words contained in those 21 parts. After all, colours are colours and words are words: the two are mutually exclusive. But, I repeat: I can actually see that picture in front of me and it is made up of the words I have used.

So what do I do? Do I cut off my ear and abandon my picture of ‘Visions of Johanna’ right here and now just because you are not getting it? Or do I trust myself and follow a course which may have been set for me in some foggy web of destiny, believing that

37 my time is well spent no matter what you say with your banner. And let me just say that money doesn’t come into it for no price could be put on the time I have honestly taken. What kind of life is this anyway where everything has to measured in pocket change? This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco. I’m not here to make money and get laid. And, sure as hell, this ain’t no GUFF! So what do I do?

(Sometime later – after dark). Well, bugger that. I am not doing this for you anyway. So this jumble of words, this unframed canvas, this septic file, may be discarded in the corner of someone’s attic or it may be hung in the Royal Academy. It matters not. I am here to do what must be done. And when I put down my pen and my brushes and say ‘It is finished’ let the devil decide if I was right or wrong.

Now the foregoing may have either cleared the air or got me into deeper shit, but I am still left with that dilemma of bringing into focus some images that have been buried deep within my 21 written parts. In fact, the images to which I now wish to refer, in continuing my pictorial study of ‘Visions of Johanna’, are contained in Part 15: a part which had the sub-title ‘A Matter of Heat and Light’. For the purpose of completing the corner of the canvas that currently confronts me, those previous images which relate to (a) fire; (b) marriage; and (c) heat and light contained in part 15 must, for the benefit of my readers without a banner, now again be coloured in.

The image of ‘fire’ in my Part 15 mainly centred upon the use of the expression ‘Thief of Fire’ as adopted by the critic Northrop Frye when referring to the works of William Blake and also used by the author Clinton Heylin when referring to Bob Dylan at about the time that Dylan recorded ‘Visions of Johanna’. Dealing firstly with Mr. Frye, I included extracts from his book ‘ Fearful Symmetry – A Study of William Blake’ (148) and I mentioned that this critic headed chapter 7 of his book ‘The Thief of Fire’. I recorded that, in this particular chapter, Frye dealt, among other things, with the work ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’, a collection of poetry and prose that Blake completed in 1789. Joining together this idea of a ‘marriage’ or a ‘wedding’ being linked to ‘fire’ and to a ‘union of heat and light’, I observed the following:

‘Fry then goes on to explain the way Blake interprets the Bible to support his view of man coming to real terms with what actually surrounds him, through an ‘apocalypse’ and a ‘resurrection’; if only, of course, man would wake up:

‘That is why in the Bible the apocalypse is often referred to as a wedding, a union in love in which the relation of man to nature becomes the relation of the lover to the beloved, the Bridegroom to the Bride.’

‘Then we come to the aspect of ‘fire’ and the reasoning for the heading of the chapter of ‘Fearful Symmetry’ to be called ‘The Thief of Fire’. Frye continues to consider Blake’s idea of resurrection:

‘And as the risen body perceives the new world, the old one perishes in flames. Why flames? Because fire is the greatest possible combination in this world of heat and light, and the risen body lives in the greatest possible combination of the spiritual forms of heat and light: energy or desire, and reason and vision. Fire destroys the solid form of nature, and those who have believed nature to be solid will find

38 themselves in a lake of fire at the Dies Irae. But the imagination cannot be consumed by fire, for it is fire; the burning bush of God which never exhausts its material’ .

So much for Mr. Frye, when I came to Mr. Heylin, I reported his use of the expression, ‘ a thief of fire’ when referring to Dylan as follows:

‘….. the description relates to the period when Dylan had just put the finishing touches to ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and before he embarked upon the 1966 world tour. The passage is coloured with some words from the French poet Arthur Rimbaud that Clinton applies to Dylan’s prevailing personna. I am compelled to repeat the extract here:

‘He was once again required to be a thief of fire, to play before unknowing eyes in Hawaii, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, France, and then England again. As he boarded the plane in L.A., he perhaps recalled Rimbaud’s sobering thoughts about confronting the unknown: “(When) the poet makes himself a seer…..he reaches (into) the unknown and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them!”. It seemed the crazier Dylan became, the more durable the visions that remained.’ (149)

I then went on to take these references to ‘thieves of fire’ a little further and put them into the context of my picture, or at least the stage of my picture that I had reached in part 15. I wrote as follows:

‘Now although in this article I have, with the assistance of two respected biographers, drawn together William Blake and Bob Dylan as being thieves of fire in respect of their visions, I am not meant to be writing here about the visions of either William Blake or Bob Dylan at all, I am meant to be writing about the visions of Johanna. So, to get me back on track, I need to refer to the mainstay character of my view of ‘Visions of Johanna’, namely Joan of Arc who, in death, was of course a virgin consumed by fire. And here I again refer to those colours of the brilliant red of the flames that licked the flesh from her body to leave only a skeleton state and the brilliant white that represents the purity of her virginity, a state that was of such importance to her. In those colours is found another union, this time of flame and purity which I see as resembling Blake’s union of heat and light. The union produced by fire; that very same fire that consumed Joan of Arc.’(150)

To make this current part 22 of my series even more vivid I could quote further great chunks of part 15 relating to (a) fire; (b) marriage; and (c) heat and light but one can get tired of all this repetition and you will just have to believe me when I say that I set out various lines from ‘Visions of Johanna’ that related to these matters. Believe me, or go back to Part 15 and read it again. Either way, the fact is that that was then and this is now, and all this preparation has been for the purpose of presenting another face into this particular corner of my canvass. So let me introduce you:

6. Enter Leonard Cohen

There is in fact a direct link between the works of face number 5 (Charles Baudelaire . French poet born in 1821) and face number 6 (Leonard Cohen , Canadian poet and

39 singer born in 1934) that I have painted into this corner of my canvas. When, in the last part of this series, I brought the image of Charles Baudelaire into the frame, I dealt at some length with his collection of poems Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) and I quoted an extract from ‘The Martyr’ a poem in this collection. I likened certain verses of ‘The Martyr’, which concludes as follows, to Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’:

- Far from the ravening courts, and the crowds, And the scurrilous world, Stunning enigma, sleep peacefully now, Hermetically sealed.

He roams the earth, and your immortal form Lies with him where he lies – The constant bride beside her faithful groom, To the end of his days.’

The ‘direct link’ which I have previously mentioned is that Cohen took the title to one of the songs of his debut album ‘The Songs of Leonard Cohen’, released in 1967, straight from the title to a poem in Baudelaire’s collection Les Fleurs du mal. The song in question is ‘Sisters of Mercy’, and, like Baudelaire’s poem of the same name involves images of family, flowers and sin!

There is a stunning version of ‘Sisters of Mercy’ on the album ‘Cohen Live – Leonard Cohen in Concert’ released in 1994. The songs on this album were recorded live in Canada in 1993 and just two steps away from ‘Sisters of Mercy’ on the album is another song that appears on the 1971 album ‘Songs of Love and Hate’. It is a song that has all the ingredients that were contained in Part 15 of this series and to which I have previously referred namely (a) fire; (b) marriage; and (c) heat and light. One of the aspects that strikes a match in me about this song, when specifically putting it alongside Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’ however is that, in the conclusion of the song, Cohen refers to the images of ‘love and light’ as being ‘so cruel’ which, is exactly how Dylan saw the visions of Johanna in the penultimate version of his song. The Cohen song in question has the title ‘Joan of Arc’ and I now set out the verses of the song in full.

‘Now the flames they followed Joan of Arc as she came riding through the dark; no moon to keep her armour bright, no man to get her through this very smoky night. She said, "I'm tired of the war, I want the kind of work I had before, a wedding dress or something white to wear upon my swollen appetite." Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way, you know I've watched you riding every day and something in me yearns to win such a cold and lonesome heroine.

40 "And who are you?" she sternly spoke to the one beneath the smoke. "Why, I'm fire," he replied, "And I love your solitude, I love your pride." "Then fire, make your body cold, I'm going to give you mine to hold," saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride. And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress. It was deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and then she clearly understood if he was fire, oh then she must be wood. I saw her wince, I saw her cry, I saw the glory in her eye. Myself I long for love and light, but must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?’

So I have likened certain senses in Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna' to both Baudelaire’s ‘The Martyr’ and Leonard Cohen’s ‘Joan of Arc’ (who was probably the most famous martyr that has ever lived). There is however another link between ‘The Martyr’ and ‘Joan of Arc’, and this in the references to marriage; both ‘victims’ of the works being referred to as brides:

Baudelaire: ‘He roams the earth, and your immortal form Lies with him where he lies – The constant bride beside her faithful groom, To the end of his days.’

Cohen:

"Then fire, make your body cold, I'm going to give you mine to hold," saying this she climbed inside to be his one, to be his only bride. And deep into his fiery heart he took the dust of Joan of Arc, and high above the wedding guests he hung the ashes of her wedding dress.’

41 So where is the business of marriages and brides leading? Let me bring Dylan back into the frame. There is a recorded instance when Dylan and Leonard Cohen became relatively close. It was during the Rolling Thunder tour and, to be exact, on the 4th December 1975 at the Forum De Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. During the show that night Dylan performed the song ‘Isis’ and, as has already been pointed out by the insightful Patrick Webster (151)Dylan introduced the song thus:

‘Listen closely, this is a true story, it could happen to any man. This is about the marriage ceremony between man and woman, it’s what happens when you get married’.

Dylan dedicated the song to someone in the audience and as his wife Sara was siting in the front row, and as this couple had just a week and a half before celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary, it would be natural to think that he dedicated the song to her. But no, it was dedicated to someone else in the audience, someone who had himself sung about a mystical marriage and the cruelty of love and light. On that particular night Dylan dedicated the song to Leonard Cohen.(152)

In my eyes, all these connections from Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’ to Baudelaire’s ‘The Martyr’ to Cohen’s ‘Joan of Arc’ and all that has gone before represent instances of relative colour; aspects of light and shade; nuances of movement and circumstance that are woven fine into the final picture. It matters not to me that the sum total of these connections do not have the power to tear down the banners of the disgruntled, for such banners are barriers to the imagination in any event. The centrepiece of my study not only physically tore down the banners of those who opposed her but also crossed the barriers that had restrained those of her kind. But then she was favoured with a special power: the power of She.

And, finally……….next time……

(148) ‘Fearful Symmetry – A Study of William Blake’ by Northrop Frye. First published by Princeton University Press in 1947. Published in paperback by Princeton Paperbacks in 1969. (149) Behind the Shades: Take 2. Paperback edition. Page 243 (150) Freewheelin’ 206. Part 15 ‘Like Ice,Like Fire’ (151) Freewheelin 215. Isis Part V (152) Behind the Shades: Take 2. Paperback edition. Page 429

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